"he tried to tell the truth, but what came out was only half of the truth. Later, much later, he found that he was unable to relieve himself of two regrets: one, that when she leaned back he saw that the necklace he made had scratched her throat, and two, that in the most important moment of his life he had chosen the wrong sentence."

ebullient /adj. / overflowing with enthusiasm and high spirits. bubbling. boiling with emotion. full of joyful, unrestrained high spirits. energetic. lively. very positive or happy.

ebullient /adj./ 1. Caleb won first place in the "Health and Medical Sciences" category in his science fair on Friday night. Ebullient almost doesn't describe the extent of his joy. When they called his name his surprise turned to utter joy, his face flushed, and he ran for the stage. I think all he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears because he couldn't seem to hear or speak for quite some time.

ebullient /adj./ 2. The most ebullient moment for me at the science fair came at this moment:

I was proud-to-bursting watching him explain his project to the interested crowds. I just stood there wondering how this could be my grown child, so old, so smart, so independent, and how I got to this stage of life without knowing it.

ebullient /adj./ 3. Thursday night, in the midst of everything else, Savannah and two of her friends performed a gymnastics number at the school talent show. (They choreographed it themselves.) She has never actually taken a gymnastics class, but this was not a deterrent. She was absolutely ebullient, and out-of-breath, after her performance, and I (chagrined at my former reluctance) told her that she could take gymnastics in the fall. After begging for years, she was beyond ebullient at this concession.

ebullient /adj./ 4. Saturday was the annual Lehi Days Rodeo, held just down the hill from our neighborhood. My kids look forward to it every year, and they were utterly ebullient to be out in the sunshine, enjoying the rodeo events, the food, the concession stand (!), the petting zoo, and the free-roaming that comes along so rarely in 21st century childhood.

ebulliently /adv./ 5. One of the events of the rodeo is the "Chicken Chase," where they let the kids line up (according to age) and chase chickens. If you catch the chicken, you get to keep it. Ethan lined up with the other four-year-olds and ran his legs off chasing down a chick. He made a one-handed grab and snagged this chick, and then ebulliently raised it in the air in triumph. My kids have done the chicken chase every year but this is the first year that Ethan competed and the first year we've ever caught a chicken. When Caleb saw him running all-out, and knowing our little warrior, he said, "I knew he'd be just like that."

ebullient /adj./ 6. At Lehi Days last year, Olivia talked us into buying a little chick, since no one caught one in the chicken chase. She raised it for about four months before I decided we were a no-live-chicken house and we found a farm for her. This year she brought her own money and bought a bunny. She could not be any more ebullient about her new charge.

ebullient /adj./ 7. Lest you think our entire week was one ebullient moment after another, I offer this aggravation as evidence to the contrary. I am less than ebullient over the spike in our temperatures this week. This was my thermostat reading on Friday afternoon. Yeah, that's right...that's how hot it was inside my house because running the air conditioning in February seems just wrong. I skipped right over the first stage of grief and went straight to "Anger." Our winter is over. Argh!!